1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to patient bedside monitors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Real-time access to vital data concerning a patient, at the patient's bedside, is limited to directly measured parameters, such as an electro cardiogram (ECG) readout, oxygen saturation (O2), and blood pressures (BP). These directly measured parameters are usually called vital signs and are displayed in real-time or near real-time at the bedside on a corresponding number of viewing devices (also called monitors).
However, access to additional data vital to the immediate care of the patient (such as, but not limited to, electrolytes, gases, hemoglobin and cultures) is not immediately available at the bedside. As used herein vital data refers to all data critical to the immediate care of the patient, such as vital signs, electrolytes, gases, hemoglobin, cultures and other data, in any combination.
Electronic medical records (EMR) have been gaining acceptance in healthcare facilities. EMR systems are designed to archive all information about a patient in one or more stand alone or networked computer systems, including patient identification data, patient demographics data, patient medical history, image study reports, patient vital signs, caregiver instructions, laboratory information for laboratory orders and results, medications ordered and administered, and additional data, usually in chronologic order. EMR systems are frequently not integrated, some of which serve single purposes, such as providing laboratory information only.
To view data from the EMR systems at the bedside requires a caregiver to know or guess or spend time ascertaining what vital data are most recently available and then to request those data. Further efforts are required to arrange the data in a useful way on a presentation device, such as screen or printer.
Using conventional EMR systems is not real-time or near real-time (i.e., it is slow). It is tedious (requires the entry of many keystrokes at a computer terminal which are repetitious of keystrokes typed previously for the same patient or other patients). It is error-prone (human input is subject to typographical errors and loss of concentration due to tediousness, stress and subjective physical or mental state of the user). It is non-uniform (each request may arrange the same information in different order and screen location or arrange different information). It is not suited for more than a single viewer at one time. It requires training to identify and request data; and often requires registration and login. It moves the user from the bedside, where the patient can be viewed, to a computer terminal input device, albeit sometimes nearby.
Because of such problems, clinicians often resort to relying on dedicated personnel to provide the data needed for the daily decision making cycle. The data is often provided on paper (either printouts or manually transcribed data items read from a computer presentation device) and read aloud to a group of caregivers at the bedside. This introduces other opportunities for errors, such as errors during transcription, errors during reading (e.g., due to dyslexia or mispronunciation) and errors of aural processing by the listeners (due to distraction, hearing impairments and room noise). Furthermore, this approach consumes the time of trained personnel, a scarce resource also needed to perform other important or critical duties, such as administering medications and tending to patient comfort.